Things you only do ONCE!

[magnets]

Originally Posted by yash101

I solder without safety goggles. I also drill while holding things in my hand (carefully). You just need to make sure the your hand isn't in the path of the dill. I also carry batteries with one hand and never drop them (even though I'm a weak Indian).
^^^^BUT DON'Y TRY THIS YOURSELF CAUSE I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU LOSE A HAND OR TWO!!!^^^^

You really need to be more safe.

1.) I'm sorry, but you have to be stupid to solder without safety goggles. My good friend was soldering, and to save time, he didn't put his safety glasses on over his eyes. An impurity in the piece he was working on came to a boil, and splashed right into his eyeball. He is now blind in that eye. Before you go to solder, think to yourself, "is my eyesight worth the inconvenience of wearing safety glasses?"

2.) If you're drilling through foam or plywood, then it's ok. If you're drilling through aluminum, and the bit catches on the part, it'll spin and cut you. If you're unlucky, it'll break your wrist. I've seen it happen.

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

No!

You also need to make sure your hand isn't in the path of whatever it is you're drilling when the bit catches on it and spins it around at high speed. Basically you need to not be holding the part.

+1 to this. One of the captains of my former team almost lost two of her fingers when she was drilling a hole in a piece of wood and the bit caught. If it's possible for it to go wrong, it usually will, and always at the most inopportune time.

[omsahmad]

Originally Posted by fiona.crush1011

218: Rivet tread to a wheel powered by 2 mini-CIM Motors to give the shooter extra grip on the frisbees (It worked for about 1 frisbee then because it was spinning so quickly a few of the rivets came undone but kept spinning and the tread whipped around and broke a few pieces on our lexan shooter)

We did the same thing last year.

218b: ^^^and hand feed the frisbees. The conveyor belting spun around and fractured my finger.

[Dinoyan]

Wire while the robot is on.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by magnets

You really need to be more safe.

Really, really, REALLY.

"I do X that I know is in violation of basic and fundamental shop safety rules" would get you banned from my team in a heartbeat, while you still had one.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by Gregor

My team did a double sided intake too. It was a neat little feature, but totally not worth the space it takes up (and how much fun electronic placement gets), considering how easy it is to turn around.

We had a 4 sided intake in 2012. Made for an awesome undercarriage picture. Didn't turn out particularly useful though...

[xXhunter47Xx]

Fry a jaguar from wiring it reverse polarity.
Except no we did it twice.

[c.shu]

Try to balance on a bridge while dragging your battery across the floor behind you.

[Bulah!]

227 (i think that's what number we're on): Build a top heavy robot that moves very quickly
228: Allow the vast majority of your team to go home before testing the newly wired drive train.
We were supposed to be finished this past Saturday around 4:30, but something went wrong with our victors and it was 7 ish before we (myself, our programmer, our coach, and two mentors) actually went home. If we had more people there, maybe we would have figured out the issue much faster.

[RobotDoktor]

Definitely don't drill anything metal, sharp, or both while holding it with your hand. Fortunately the scar is pretty much gone now.

Other things to avoid:

• Cutting small parts on the chopsaw (it will go flying)

• Leaving the chuck key in a drill press/lathe/mill

• Holding resistors while soldering them

• Stalling AM9015 motors (burned out the motor and melted the brand new Anderson connectors)

• Send poorly dimensioned drawings for machining

I should point out that CAD autosave is not a thing because of the time it takes to save assemblies of hundreds of parts.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by RobotDoktor

• Leaving the chuck key in a drill press/lathe/mill

This is a good way to get a chuck key lodged in your skull. No joking matter, this could legitimately kill you.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by RobotDoktor;1337673
Other things to avoid:
[LIST

Leaving the chuck key in a drill press/lathe/mill[/list]

The Torbots found a way to deal with this on the drill presses, or 2/3 of them at any rate. First, the chuck key is chained to the stand of the drill press... then the "On" button is covered in such a way that the chuck key has to be used to turn on the drill press. The "Off" button? WIDE open in case of needing to hit it quickly.

[theCADguy]

Accidentally overwrite someone else's changes when working in a CAD assembly

Forget to dimension the locations of holes in a CAD drawing

Use the extrude command to create a hole on Autodesk Inventor

[Kingland093]

I know someone tried to wire a controller into the PDB with the battery connected and a circuit breaker in the slot.

[matthewdenny]

Put a 1/4 20 but on the PD board.